Congress will investigate Trump's wiretap claims

President
Donald Trump at a meeting with House and Senate leadership on
Wednesday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in
Washington.AP Photo/Evan
Vucci

WASHINGTON — Key members of Congress say they will honor
President Donald Trump's request to investigate his
unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama overstepped his authority
as president and had Trump's telephones tapped during the
election campaign. A US official said the FBI had asked the
Justice Department to dispute Trump's allegation, though no such
statement has been issued.

Obama's intelligence director also said no such action was ever
carried out.

Trump's startling claim of presidential abuse of power, made
without evidence in a series of tweets early Saturday, capped a
week in which the positive reaction to his address to Congress
quickly evaporated amid the swirl of allegations — and
revelations — about contacts between Trump aides and Russia's
ambassador to the US, both during and after a presidential
election Russia is believed to have meddled in.

Trump is said to be frustrated by his senior advisers' inability
to tamp down the Russia issue. Compounding the situation was the
revelation last week that former US senator and now Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, an early Trump campaign supporter, had met
twice with the Russian official but didn't disclose that to
lawmakers when he was asked about it during his Senate
confirmation hearing.

Separately, an Indiana newspaper reported that Vice President
Mike Pence used personal email to conduct state business when he
was governor of Indiana. The revelation recalled the use of
personal email by Trump's 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary
Clinton, when she was secretary of state. The issue dogged
Clinton for most of the presidential campaign.

"It's sort of like getting nibbled to death by ducks," said
Rutgers political science professor Ross Baker.

The House and Senate intelligence committees, and the FBI, are
investigating the contacts, and Trump demanded Sunday that they
broaden the scope of their inquiries into Russian meddling in the
2016 election to include Obama's potential abuse of his executive
powers.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North
Carolina Republican, said in a statement that the panel "will
follow the evidence where it leads, and we will continue to be
guided by the intelligence and facts as we compile our findings."

Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who is the chairman of
the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the
committee "will make inquiries into whether the government was
conducting surveillance activities on any political party's
campaign officials or surrogates."

Trump's request carries some risk, particularly if the committees
unearth damaging information about him or his associates.
Committee Democrats will have access to the information and could
wield anything negative against the president. Asking Congress to
conduct a much broader investigation than originally envisioned
also ensures the Russia issue will hang over the White House for
months.

Trump claimed in a series of unsubstantiated tweets Saturday that
his predecessor had tried to undermine him by tapping the
telephones at Trump Tower, the New York skyscraper where Trump
based his campaign and transition operations, and maintains a
home.

Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said
nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place.

"Absolutely, I can deny it," said Clapper, who left government
when Trump took office. Other Obama representatives also denied
Trump's allegation, which the FBI has asked the Justice
Department to dispute, a US official told The Associated Press on
Sunday. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the request by
name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The department, however, has issued no such statement. DOJ
spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment Sunday, and an
FBI spokesman also did not comment.

The New York Times reported that senior American officials say
FBI Director James Comey has argued that the Justice Department
must correct the claim because it falsely insinuates that the FBI
broke the law.

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Trump's
instruction to Congress was based on "very troubling" reports
"concerning potentially politically motivated investigations
immediately ahead of the 2016 election." He did not elaborate.

Spicer said the White House wants the congressional committees to
"exercise their oversight authority to determine whether
executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016." He
said there would be no further comment until the investigations
are completed.

Spicer's chief deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she thought
Trump was "going off of information that he's seen that has led
him to believe that this is a very real potential."

Josh Earnest, who was Obama's White House press secretary, said
presidents do not have authority to unilaterally order the
wiretapping of American citizens, as Trump has alleged was done
to him. FBI investigators and Justice Department officials must
seek approval from a federal judge for such a step. Earnest
accused Trump of leveling the allegation to distract from the
attention being given to the Russia issue.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said they would ask
the White House for details about reports of contacts between the
White House and the Justice Department concerning the FBI's
review of whether the Russian government unlawfully influenced
the US presidential election.

Trump said in the tweets that he had "just found out" about being
wiretapped. Unclear was whether he was referring to having
learned through a briefing, a conversation, or a media report.
The president in the past has tweeted about unsubstantiated and
provocative reports he reads on blogs or conservative websites.

The tweets stood out, given the gravity of the charge and the
sharp personal attack on the former president. Trump spoke as
recently as last month about how much he liked Obama and how much
they get along, despite their differences.

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the
very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or
sick) guy!" he tweeted, misspelling "tap."

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said a "cardinal rule" of the Obama
administration was not to interfere in Justice Department
investigations. Lewis said neither Obama nor any White House
official had ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. "Any
suggestion otherwise is simply false," Lewis said.

Clapper appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," and Sanders and
Earnest were on ABC's "This Week."

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Congress will investigate Trump's wiretap claims

WASHINGTON (AP) — Key members of Congress say they will honor President Donald Trump's request to investigate his unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama overstepped his authority as president and had Trump's telephones tapped during the election campaign.